


Who Will Save Your Soul

by slasher48



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 08, Alternate Season/Series 09, Alternate Season/Series 10, Canon-Typical Violence, Dean Winchester Bears the Mark of Cain, Demonization of a Female Demon, Depressed Dean, Episode: s06e17 My Heart Will Go On, Episode: s08e17 Goodbye Stranger, F/M, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 09, Season/Series 10, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5937733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slasher48/pseuds/slasher48
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg almost <i>sympathizes</i>--to Dean's utter horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Will Save Your Soul

She cackles when he brings it up, what Sam said, and it’s right about then, as she’s—laughing, what passes for _genuinely_ from her, for like three minutes, that he realizes it revealed way too much.

He wants to shake his head at himself, but that would only shove him further under the bus.  _Unicorn_. He shouldn’t have even bothered.

“Sweetheart, you and I both know that doesn’t exist.” She shifts in her chains and brushes her pants off, cooing, “Dear ol’ Sammy’s a romantic, but you and me? We know better.”

He does his best to give away nothing, but she sees it, anyway, her coo turning into another sharp cackle, “Or _do_ we? Do you, Dean? Do you know you’re about as damned as I am?”

She’s quieter for a moment, almost sincere—if he were the type to believe demons could _ever_ be, “That he can’t save either of us, no matter what he  _wants_. It can’t do much of anything for things like us.”

And yeah, she’s right, he _knew_ , but it’s still a slam to the solar plexus to have it said. He turns away to gather himself, clenched from jaw to hip, clutching at composure. She snickers at his back. Of course she does. He would.

“I don’t need him to save me,” he growls, eventually, back to himself or so he hopes. She rolls her eyes, believing it about as much as he would expect. Damn demons; it’s like they’ve got X-ray specs, the way they just pick up on your shit like that.

“You’ve got the fucking _Mark of Cain_ and you walk around here like a ticking bomb, ready to explode in a messy shower of violence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the tension, but please. You’re _barely_ the Dean I know and hate anymore, admit it.”

“I’m not admitting jack to you, bitch,” he mutters, his teeth gritting. He wonders how long he can keep this up before either Sam or Cas come down to check whether he lost himself and caught Meg in the crossfire; nobody’d mourn, probably, but the mess would be hell to clean up (and he’d be cleaning it, as soon as they got him back).

“Fine, then. Let me ~*tell you your future*~. …You’ll spend your whole miserable life thinking you can’t be saved until you fuck up bad enough that you  _can’t_ be saved, and Clarence’ll be on that sinking ship till the day his fuckhead Father lets him kick it. I’ll watch and laugh, Sam’ll watch and cry, and Crowley’ll step in to work you somehow toward what he wants.”

The dungeon is silent as he reels and she smirks, smug—he can _feel it_ —at his trembling shoulders. “Looks like I hit the mark. Takes one to know one, _bitch_.”

He stomps toward the doors, his fists clenched, the Mark burning, his breath shallowing. If he stays in here another minute, he’ll take off her fucking head, newly-dyed brown hair and all.

“I’m _nothing_ like you,” he manages, a snarl of air, a half-hearted conviction, and she snorts and starts to answer, but he’s gone already. Doors slammed shut, heading toward the kitchen at a near run and almost pulling the refrigerator door off its damn hinges in effort to get his hands on a beer.

_You’re about as damned as I am_.

He stares at the wall and clutches the counter while he downs one, two, three swallows, fuming, and when next he’s looked down there’s a fucking dent and the bottle clings to his hand in bloody pieces. The Mark burns on.

He goes for the fridge again, hoping he can feed it something else, but when he turns around, there’s Casti-fucking-el, leaning silently, almost like the old days, against the doorway. He looks tired, but then the only power he’s got is making him _ill_ so. Naturally.

Cas watches him, blue eyes wary but not scared, and Dean marvels at how little self-preservation he’s got, before letting out a huff of a laugh because _look who’s fucking talking_. He turns away from Cas like he turned from Meg and keeps toward the fridge, grabbing a towel to wipe his hand (though he heals scary fast lately), but he can’t drown Cas out any more than he could her—can _less_ , actually.

“We warned you, Dean. Her power lies in words. And you’re… particularly susceptible right now.”

Dean scoffs, tossing the towel and ripping sandwich makings out of the fridge with a jerk and slapping them onto the counter. Cas doesn’t jump; damn the unnaturally unfazed son of a bitch, so calm while Dean is coming apart at the seams—at the _soul_ probably, and maybe he _will_ be a demon, what a pleasant fucking thought.

“Yeah, ‘ignore ‘em and they’ll leave you alone’ is grade school technique, Cas. I know.” Cas’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t move, just takes a breath and stares, watching Dean make a sandwich like he’s the _Food Network_ or something.

“I heard… some of it,” Cas eventually says, sounding guilty, as though he could turn his fucking celestial ears off—and wait, can he? Something to ask later. Right now, he’s got to brake this fucking guilt trip.

“Good, saves me a family meeting or whatever later. You can help me puzzle it out once I’ve got food in me.”

Cas doesn’t look up to puzzling it out, really, though. He looks… well, tired, like Dean thought earlier, and… sad. Did Cas always look that sad? Is it only cos Dean has a minute to just look at him that it’s that freaking obvious?

“I could… I just wanted you to know you’re not sinking, Dean. The water may rise, but your boat is not at a stop.”

Dean laughs into his first mustardy bite, bitterly amused. “Tell that to the _Titanic_ , man. Moving ships still sink.”

Castiel’s sadness dissipates, replaced by resignation just as bitter and twice as firm, “Well, I managed to un-sink _that,_ I’m sure I can manage one—exceptional—human.”

The food turns to mush in Dean’s mouth and he chokes when he swallows. Cas’s faith in him is never founded, but god, it’s _there_ , right there, unchanged whenever Dean tests it. “That was Balthazar, though,” he says, but it’s weak, a butterfly against a hurricane. He supposes that’s kind of what’s happening here, human will versus that of an angel, but hey, he’s taken some pretty big fish.

Somehow, though, when Cas smiles ruefully and murmurs, “I hadn’t been sure until now that that lie had worked.” Dean doesn’t want to take this one. He wants to swirl in this hurricane, or whatever the metaphor is; he wants Meg to be dead wrong, for Cas to be able to save him. He wants to be saved, just this once, just this _once_.

(And he’s lying to himself, because it wouldn’t be once, it’d be always, since the moment they _met_. Pyrrhic victory against Raph and dick move shove out of Purgatory and all. But when doesn’t he; the truth might kill.)

He smiles back, sets down his sandwich audibly, and stares at Cas head-on when he looks up. And that’s all they do for a second, just smile at each other, until he says, almost laughing at something that’s not funny, “Hadn’t been sure it _was_ a lie til now—should I be impressed or pissed?” The Mark burns on his arm, but hell, he knows what _it_ wants. What does Cas want?

Cas’s smile turns strained, “In my experience, both. That’s how you often respond.” He probably thinks he’s holding up well, but Dean can see how much he hates himself for even bringing it up. It’s familiar. He wants to comfort him, but how can he? Dean’s help rarely turns out good for this particular angel, if it even does for _anyone_.

“Yeah? What if we just skip the badness this time? Good on you for learning how to lie, Cas, but next time, not to me, all right?” Castiel, angel of the goddamn Lord, has eyes that actually _shine_ when Dean lets him off the hook, but he says nothing, just nods and stares at his feet, still somehow _radiating_ gratitude.

“I’m going to go check on Meg,” he eventually says, and a cold wash goes down Dean’s back, through his system, making the Mark feel on _fire_ by comparison. It’s not jealousy, can’t be—Meg’s not that important, but. It stings, and he snaps a little,

“Yeah, make sure she hasn’t slipped her cuffs, who knows what the fuck tricks she knows.”

Cas stares at him, confused, and then just tilts his head in acknowledgment, walking away. Dean notices the softening sandwich half-finished on his plate, then, and finishes it like someone might steal it if he doesn’t, listening for Cas’s steps and worrying at how clear they are—that’s not human, right?

Cas disappears toward the dungeon, further and further away, and Dean stares in horror at his empty plate when he hears, clear as day, “You’re very unkind to Dean.”

And her amused retort, before he closes the doors, “Not nearly as _unkind_ as he is.”

He walks out of the kitchen and into his bedroom and shuts the door on anything else.

He wonders whether she means to _her_ or to _himself_.

Then he pulls the case notes for the possible tulpa in Jackson off his nightstand and onto his lap, because she’s right either way and it’s pretty fucking pointless to focus on it.


End file.
